Bill Belichick Press Conference Transcript - 10/31/2011

Monday, October 31, 2011 12:34 PM EDT

BB: I think there isn't a whole lot to add to what I said yesterday after the game. I thought that Pittsburgh did a good job - they did a better job than we did, in all the areas of the game. Competitive game that still came down to a shot there in the last couple minutes, but [we] just weren't able to make enough plays to come out of it. Time to move on, correct mistakes and move on to the Giants. Tough, hard-fought game. They did a good job so give them credit.

Q: In the secondary, would you say some of the problems, especially on third down were more mental or physical based?

BB: Depends on how you look at it. Bottom line is we just have to execute a little bit better. There are things they did that obviously caused some problems. We either didn't make adjustments to it quick enough or in some cases we tried to adjust to it but we just couldn't get it done the way we needed to get it done. Overall, they just did a little better job than we did.

Q: The Steelers played a lot more coverage than they have played in awhile. How did you think your receivers handled that and what else could they have done?

BB: They played us in man coverage. It wasn't anything that I would say we hadn't really seen before, but probably a little higher percentage than what they've shown in other games. We worked on it. Again, we just have to do a better job in those situations - protecting, getting open, having plays that maybe could make everything happen a little bit quicker, a little bit cleaner. Again, I don't want to get into that everything was a self-inflicted wound. I think they played well, I think they did a lot of things well. We had some plays, not as many as they did and that's why the result was what it was. Obviously a competitive game that they outperformed us in.

Q: Their cornerbacks were pretty physical, especially downfield. Was that the corners adjusting to the way the refs were calling it?

BB: I think that's what we normally see. Teams that we've seen a lot of man-coverage from, the Jets, Oakland, teams like that, Miami.

Q: Your run-pass ratio was very much skewed toward passing. Was that game plan? Or was that an adjustment?

BB: Of course a lot of plays that are in the fourth quarter, we were down by 13 points, 10 points, of course there's going to be more passes in the fourth quarter than there are going to be runs when you're in that situation. Some of it was situational, some of it was we were in some long-yardage situations, more than we want to be in.

Q: In that same vein, it appeared that Kevin Faulk had a lot of snaps and got a lot of touches, was that situational or scheme?

BB: We fell behind. We were in the shotgun a lot, we were throwing a lot. That's something that he does well so that put him in the game a little bit more. We didn't have a lot of snaps in the game and many of the ones we had were situational - trying to score, trying to comeback, throwing the ball. We weren't really able to have as many snaps as we wanted when we were in control of the situation or had more control of the situation. They did a good job of putting us in that situation and we tried to work our way out of it but weren't quite able to do it.

Q: It looked like Kevin Faulk was fairly comfortable. What was your take on how he performed?

BB: I think he did alright. I think it will be better going forward but I think it was alright.

Q: On a lot of their early success with Heath Miller, it seemed that they were coming out in multiple tight end formations and Brandon Spikes would blitz. Was he blitzing read on what the formation was like or was that play call?

BB: I think he was blitzing because that was what we were in. I don't remember how many of those there were - maybe one or two. Again, it's a combination of things. A couple of times we were in pressure, a couple of times we weren't. Obviously we didn't do a very good job defending really anything on that first drive but the tight end for sure. That wasn't a very good defensive series for us.

Q: Shaun Ellis went out with a rib injury. Do you have any idea how he is doing? I'm not sure if you've seen any of the guys yet.

BB: No, we don't. I'm sure we have a lot of guys that are bumped and bruised from the game yesterday. We'll see where everybody is on Wednesday.

Q: You mentioned that you guys didn't get a good look on the replay in the booth. You don't have control over that, right?

BB: That's right.

Q: Do you wonder why at a crucial time like that you couldn't get a good replay?